Forty-mile-per-hour winds drove a pouring rain sideways outside the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., this past Thursday afternoon, washing the Bad Lands dust from a dozen or more cars and pickups (mostly pickups) parked on the streets outside. Inside, another storm was brewing, this one going on behind closed doors, as a handful of drivers of those vehicles waited …
An e-mail from an old friend, the filmmaker John Hanson, came out of the blue Wednesday, the day before the newspapers all said we were going to have a northern lights display tonight. The front page headline in the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday blared “Solar storm to create Northern Lights.” Whoa. Not so fast. The correction at the bottom of …
He was a handsome young Georgia Marine in spit-shined shoes, a white hat and a sharply pressed dress uniform, a member of the United States Marine Corps Drill Team, stationed in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1950s. She was a pretty little country girl from North Dakota, working in the Washington office of a North Dakota congressman. Their paths crossed. She …
Been about 10 days since I reported on the status of the Burgum for President campaign. I can report this morning that the e-mail machine is alive and well. I’ve gotten a couple of dozen more e-mails, at least two a day, since Doug announced he was running. I haven’t responded. Yet. But I might. You can as well. Just click on …
When I was a boy growing up in southwest North Dakota, I thought my Dad, Whitey Fuglie, was the most patriotic man in America. I know that I heard him say “God Bless America!” at least a hundred times. Maybe 200. Maybe several hundred. He really was a patriot. A World War II veteran of the U.S. Navy Air Corps, …
Many years ago (well, actually seven years ago this past Sunday), on the eve of the 2016 North Dakota primary election), I wrote in this space, “On Tuesday, I’m going to vote in the Republican primary election for Doug Burgum for Governor of North Dakota.” As I’ve written here many times, I’m a Democrat, and I don’t take crossing over …
About a month ago, I agreed to walk 100 miles in the month of April to raise awareness of cancer and the deadly toll it is taking on us and to raise money for the American Cancer Society. My goal: $250, to be donated by me and my friends. I had the help of a fine list of friends: Valerie …
As you’ve driven down Interstate 94 to Medora, N.D., for the past dozen or so years, you’ve seen a couple of yellow signs just inside the park boundary fence a few miles east of Medora that say, “Land for Sale.” Until I found out the story behind them, they gave me some pause. Hmmm. The park is selling off part …
At about 9:15 Tuesday morning, in the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., Billings County commissioners voted to go into executive session and told the general public attending the meeting to leave the room. Well, two of the three commissioners — Steve Klym and Lester Iverson — voted to do that. A third, Dean Rodne, voted against the motion to …
A letter to a whole bunch of really good friends. Dear Friends, The nightmare is over. My lawyer says I can talk about it now. Some of you know about it already. Most don’t. Here’s the short version. About a year and a half ago, there was a knock on my front door. A kind of unruly looking fellow, probably …
“On New Year’s Eve, 1940, Paul Southworth Bliss, a veteran of the Great War in Europe and a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, took his service revolver from its holster in his small apartment at the Kansas City, Missouri, YMCA, put the pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. He was just 51 years old. He left a …
I’m pretty sure these phone calls have already happened. Rrring! Rrring! “Hello, Governor’s Office, this is Doug Burgum.” “Hello, Governor, this is Bill Peterson over at the State Historical Society. They’re telling me I have to decide if I should sign off on letting the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad tear down its historic bridge over the Missouri River so …
Do you know some young person just starting or just ready to start a professional career in North Dakota? Someone who’s a good communicator — maybe a journalism degree) — and is interested in the outdoors (especially North Dakota’s Bad Lands)? Well, I’ve got an idea for them. I’ve been a member of an organization for more than 20 years …
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about some bad bills in the North Dakota Legislature that attempt to ban books from our pubic libraries. One, SB 2123, was a goofy bill that just removed libraries from the list of places “dirty books” are allowed to be displayed. It was such a bad bill that it failed in the Senate …
Elections, as they say, have consequences. What’s been going on in Billings County, North Dakota, elections has been pretty consequential. Billings County is an important place. It’s home to the Bad Lands, Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And the Little Missouri State Scenic River. More about elections in a minute. You’ve been reading here for more than 10 years …
It started last weekend. I began receiving weird text messages from unknown phone numbers outside the 701 area code. I didn’t think about it much the first time, but then they kept on coming, sometimes three a day. I ignored them, like I had been told to when I got my first cellphone. By the way, I remember my very …
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a really bad bill in the North Dakoa Legislature, HB 1205, which starts banning books from our libraries. I’ve since learned there’s another one just as bad, SB 2123, which pretty much does the same kind of thing. One’s in the House, the other in the Senate, and both have had hearings and should …
Nothing in recent memory has stirred up as much emotion among Bad Lands enthusiasts as the goofy process now underway to rid Theodore Roosevelt National Park of its wild horse herd. The papers have been flooded with letters to the editor, and newspaper editors themselves have even published editorials telling the National Park Service to keep the horses. My friend, …
I went to the North Dakota Department of Water Resources public hearing Friday on whether they should grant the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad permission to build a new bridge over the Missouri River between Bismarck and Mandan. To quote from the Department’s meeting notice, “The new bridge is intended to replace an existing bridge, the proposed removal of which will …
A lot of bad bills get introduced into the Legislature over the years. Most meet the fate they deserve — into the trash. But from time to time, a bad bill becomes law because of timing. A legislator catches a wave of public interest in a subject that’s in the news and takes advantage of that to introduce a bill …
As of today I have signed off as a contributor to my favorite magazine, Dakota Country. I’m old, and I’m tired of a lifetime of deadlines. Today, Jan.1, 2023 — it’s gonna take some time to get used to typing that number and getting it right on checks — is the first time in almost 10 years I haven’t sent …
OK, indulge me one more time, please, while I write just one more very personal column. Then I’ll shut up for a while, maybe even until after Christmas. I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Westin St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco. It’s a place I’ve stayed before — sort of. On Dec. 18, 1971, the …
The Army docs fixed me up just fine and sent me back to Waikiki late Friday, just in time for a Goodbye-To-Oahu supper. Joined my family and they splurged for dessert. Today it is off to the Big Island of Hawaii and Volcanoes National Park (if it is still there). First, a Bloody Mary on the beach (it’s still morning …
Wednesday, December 7, 2022, is a day that will live in infamy (to borrow a catchy phrase from my favorite president) for me. While visiting the USS Arizona Memorial on Pearl Harbor Day, I experienced severe chills in 80-degree weather. I went to the gift store and bought a really cool Pearl Harbor jacket, put it on and zipped it …
This article is reprinted from the December issue of Dakota Country magazine, on newstands and in the mail this week. I wish I could tell you there’s a lot to see on Kendley Plateau, south of Medora, N.D. I wish I could, but I can’t, because there’s not much to see there. Mostly Bad Lands, prairie grass, sagebrush and scattered …
Headlines from this week’s papers: “GOP grows supermajority in North Dakota’s Legislature; Dems have ‘collapsed completely’” “North Dakota sees worst voter turnout this millennium” “DFL wins full control of Minnesota government” “Minnesota voter turnout shaping up to be highest in nation yet again” The Democratic-NPL Party (my party, sadly) in North Dakota is now almost nonexistent. The number of Democrats …
Everybody’s talking about term limits this week, in the leadup to Tuesday’s election. Well, not everybody, but it certainly is the topic of discussion at coffee klatches and business lunches. Even one of my lawyer buddies walked up beside me on the track at the Y this morning and asked “What do you think is going to happen with the …
This article first appeared in the November, 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine. Long ago, way back in the 1970s, I lived in Dickinson, in western North Dakota, and was a writer and editor for The Dickinson Press. My regular working hours were 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. I was a recently returned Vietnam veteran who needed …
This article is reprinted from the October 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine.) OK, I know, I know, I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But I’m going to a little, this month, and then I’m going to offer some praise for the living. And no, it’s not dead critters or fish like you’ll read about elsewhere in …
Friends have been notified that Hal Simons, 73, died at his home this past week, after a long battle with cancer. A memorial service is being planned for late October. Hal was a longtime friend, dating back to our newspaper days in the 1970s. He was a member of a loose-knit group of friends who occasionally sat around a table …
There’s something almost magical about stepping onto the prairie and knowing that it’s possible — even likely — that you’re the first person who has ever put their foot down on that spot. Ever. One of the places you can do that is on the Long X Divide, near the extreme north end of the North Dakota Badlands. Long X …
On a warm summer evening in late August 1947, young Phyllis Maxine Boehmer Fuglie stood on the platform of a Chicago train station and kissed her husband, Whitey Fuglie, goodbye. Just 22 years old and heavy with child, she boarded a train for North Dakota, where her mother and his mother waited to help her with the birth of her …
On Wednesday, I wrote an article about Gary Berube, the fella who writes the right-wing stink letters to the editor to all our state’s papers pretty frequently. I wrote about the hypocrisy of him criticizing the proposal to forgive college loans in a recent letter to The Forum when he had taken a free $20,000 PPP loan forgiveness from the …
I’ll make this short and sweet. There’s a fellow over in Mandan, N.D., named Gary Berube who’s a stockbroker and a slumlord and a frequent right-wing contributor to the state’s newspaper editorial pages. If you read North Dakota’s newspapers, you’ve seen his rants. His most frequent one appeared in Tuesday’s online edition of The Forum. It read: Democrats Are Trying …
Drew Wrigley: Case Closed As I write this Friday, it has been exactly 10 years and 27 days since four western North Dakota counties — Billings, Slope, McKenzie and Golden Valley — filed a lawsuit to try to get access to section line roads inside four parcels of land being protected by the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency that …
Saturday will mark the three-week anniversary of the day my friend, Darrell, fell through a hole in his deck. You’ll recall that I wrote about it a couple of days later. And in that story, I asked you to speculate on what Darrell’s last words were as he headed for the deck below. I had already asked Darrell if he …
Last Sunday, I woke up a little later than usual. I don’t go to the Y on Sundays — church day. I woke up shaking and shivering like crazy — I was freezing. And I had intense shooting pains in my right leg. Uh-oh, I said. The cellulitis is back. Damn. I got up, took a hot shower to try …
HIS LAST WORDS BEFORE HE HIT THE GROUND WERE _________________________! Saturday was just a typical quiet midsummer weekend day at our house — I should say MY house because it’s been all mine for more than a week as Lillian traveled to the West Coast with her friend, Christine. I picked raspberries in the morning, stopped at the Bismarket and …
I’m going to take a little time out today from politics and saving the Bad Lands to get a little personal. A good thing has happened for me this summer, a reunion with an old pal, and I’m feeling pretty happy about it. So I’ll tell you the story. Those of you who know me know that my heart slides …
On my first trip to the grocery store, or to anywhere besides the recliner in my living room, after a 10-day hospital stay and 10 days of home confinement for treatment of a badly infected leg, I bought four peaches. California peaches, it said on the little label, not Georgia or Washington, the ones we prefer. But they were the …
I know, I’ve written about this legal battle in this space before, but it’s such good news — for now, at least — that I just can’t quit sharing it. Below is an article that appears in the June issue of Dakota Country magazine, on the newstands and in the mail right now. By the way, if you aren’t a …
My wife, Lillian, is an Anglophile. For at least as long as I’ve known her, she’s been fascinated by anything involving England or Great Britain, especially royalty, especially female royalty. Also British history. Our library is full of books about England. So a few summers ago, she took a dream trip, a three-week tour of England and the British Isles, …
Why not? Why not scribble down some thoughts about Larry Woiwode. Nobody else seems to be doing that. He deserves better. Larry was one of those people who drifted in and out of my life. Our meetings were almost always by chance. The last was a couple of years ago in the parking lot at Menard’s in Bismarck. It delayed …
Dang! Dang! Dang! When you’re old and retired, it’s hard to keep track of what day it is, and what the date is. Today was one of those nice Spring days when I hardly had a care in the world, and we kept busy, even a road trip to Dickinson, N.D., for supper and back, until just before bedtime Lillian …